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Brad Stone and Miguel Helft of The New York Times offer a fascinating read today on the growing feud between Apple's Steve Jobs and Google's Eric Schmidt, with one Silicon Valley investor telling the reporters that the conflict has elevated to "World War III." The key battlefront in this new tech war between one-time allies centers around the mobile phone, with Apple's iPhone in one corner and Google's Android in the other. It also has extended into the M&A front, with both companies competing aggressively for AdMob, and the courtroom, with Apple suing Android-handset maker HTC for patent infringement.

And the story notes that the rivalry between the two companies has risen to such a level that it could spark unusual alliances, namely a partnership between Apple and Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Rumors have circulated that the the longtime rivals are working on a deal to make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone, as well as the soon-to-be-released iPad.

But the core issue in the mobile arena appears to be a core philosophical difference. Stone and Helft write:

Apple believes that devices like smartphones and tablets should have tightly controlled, proprietary standards and that customers should take advantage of services on those gadgets with applications downloaded from Apple’s own App Store.

Google, on the other hand, wants smartphones to have open, nonproprietary platforms so users can freely roam the Web for apps that work on many devices. Google has long feared that rivals like Microsoft or Apple or wireless carriers like Verizon could block access to its services on devices like smartphones, which could soon eclipse computers as the primary gateway to the Web.

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